.C6 
Copy 1 



62d Congress \ 
Sd Session j 



SENATE 



/ Document 
I No. 1108 



THE CONSTITUTION OF THE 
UNITED STATES 

ITS FRIENDS AND FOES 



ADDRESS 



BY 



FRANKLIN W. COLLINS 

Of Nebraska 



r' 



., as 
^nosi- 




r 



PRESENTED BY MR. BROWN 

FEBRUARY 26, 1913.— Ordered to be printed 



WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1913 



I*^ 

<. 



D. OF D. 
RiAR 8 1913 



THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES-ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 



Somebody^ has said: 

Doubtless God might liave made a better berry than tbe strawberry, but 
doubtless God never did. 

So the seasoned judgment of mankind is : Doubtless man might 
have made a better constitution than ours, but doubtless man never 
did. 

Gladstone said of it : 

The Constitution of the United States is the greatest political instrument 
ever struck off on a single occasion by the minds of men. 

Of it De Tocqueville declared : 

It enables the Union to combine the power of a great empire with the 
security of a small State. 

Impressed with its priceless excellence. Caleb Gushing character- 
ized it as — 

The best inheritance transmitted to us by our fathers, the monument of 
their wisdom and their virtue under whose shelter we live and flourish as a 
people. 

Encomiums might be multiplied, but the foregoing epitomizes the 
verdict of impartial minds in all lands. 

Under the mantle of its protection our Republic for a century and 
a quarter has survived the shock of foreign and internal wars, as 
well as the exactions of peace, and despite detraction and opposi- 
tion and " false lights on the shore," our Government of the people, 
by the people, and for the people still stands upon the foundations-of- 
the fathers. 

How secure it is still rests with the American people. 

Of late a change seems to have come over a goodly portion of our 
citizenship — a portentous change — and instead of reverence for the 
Constitution and pride in its provisions, the air is full of missiles 

Tmed at this great instrument. 
A variable epidemic of Constitution criticizing, Constitution chang- 
ing, and. I sometimes fear, Constitution wrecking has broken out 
everywhere. 

I To assail the organic law and condemn its provisions as outgrown 
and inadequate for present purposes, seems to be both the fashion and 
the passion of the hour. 

The citizen who has not yielded to this malady is branded as a 
reactionary or worse. 
Samuel Smiles says: 

It takes a strong man to swim against the stream ; any dead fish can float 
with it. 

To such lengths has caustic criticism of the Constitution been 
carried that it is a popular pastime to blame the National Charter for 
nearly every form of misfortune that vexes the citizen. 

3 



4 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 

Statesmen not in sympathy with this revolutionary program 
are retired to private life, while political adventurers/ prating of 
reform, strut across the political stage, deriding the clauses of the 
Constitution, framed with so much care and prayer, and promising 
to modernize it to suit the clamor of the hour. 

The voice of history has sunk into a whisper, and hysteria rules 
in its stead. 

The situation presented is unprecedented. That it is big with bane 
to the Republic unless checked or circumvented is obvious. Its grav- 
ity can hardly be exaggerated. 

Speaking of paramount issues before the people, the preserva- 
tion or destruction of the Government of the United States is an 
issue which towers above all others even as Mount Shasta looms 
nbove the surrounding foothills. 

The saying, *' There is nothing new under the sun " applies to the 
history of the Government as well as in other fields. 

The only exceptions of note to its world-wide application are the 
American experiment of representative government based on the will 
of the people as expressed in a written constitution, and the British 
parliamentary system backed by an unwritten constitution — both of 
which systems have shown to the world that liberty regulated by 
law is the only practical scheme of self-government known to the 
human family. 

But the battle cry is now raised : " Back to the people." This 
twentieth-century slogan for bringing the Government into closer 
touch with the people is of ancient origin. 

Greece and Rome and Venice passed through every period of 
travail that we have known, and then some — indeed ran the whole 
gamut of government from depotism to anarchy, and b^ck to 
despotism again. 

If the lessons of the past are worth a fig to the people of the pres- 
ent, they teach, with tragic emphasis, that government describes the 
ar^-of a circle, swinging around from despotism to democracy, and 
from democracy to anarchy, and from anarchy back to despotism 
once more, each stepping on the heels of the other. 

I am aware that thousands are crjdng in derisive tones, " Talk 
not to us of the past ; tell us of the future." 

To those who have not parted with the balance wheel of judgment, 
the answer is sufficient when we say that the future will be as the 
past has been, if we do not profit by its teachings. 

"What do precedents amount to anyway to an unprecedented 
people like ourselves? " say the doctrinaires to their dupes. 

Shall we not tuck ourselves under the quilt of our own smug self- 
complacency and sing ourselves to sleep with the lullaby (a la Mother 
Goose) : 

I am too big to be afraid, 

No harm can come to Uncle Sara. 

"Whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad," applies 
not only to individuals, but to nations also, for a nation is but a com- 
posite of individuals. 

A big man is quite as likely to get hurt as a Lilliput when he walks 
into a pit : more — there's more of him ; he falls faster and hits harder, 
and the remains are more difficult for the coroner to assemble. 



CONSTITUTION OP THE UNITED STATES — ITS FEIENDS AND FOES. 5 

The greater the nation the greater the fall thereof. The mighty 
Titanic^ under full head of steam, laughed to scorn all thought of 
peril, boasting that she was unsinkable. The impact of the Titanic 
when she struck the iceberg in midocean was multiplied a thousand- 
fold over that of a smaller vessel going at moderate pace. 

So of the unsinkable craft we call our Government. The princi- 
ples of navigation and the rules of safety call for even greater vigi- 
lance on shipboard Avhen the largest ship afloat is plowing the ever- 
treacherous seas. 

I The truth is, there is on foot at the present moment a deliberate 
and determined effort to convert our representative Republic into a 
socialistic democracy. 

That this cause should be championed by so many men of promi- 
nence and influence, as well as by the proletarians, is startling in its 
significance. 

Whether its promoters have counted the cost of theip crusade or 
not, the movement which they have inaugurated, in its last analysis, 
means the uprooting of the mighty oak of representative government 
which the fathers planted and their sons have heretofore guarded 
with faithfulness, and the propagating in its place of a puffball, fit 
neither for food nor shelter. 

I This crusade is based upon the assumption that the people are in- 
capable of choosing representatives who will really represent them, 
but on the other hand are capable of being their own representatives 
and handling every public problem themselves without the aid of 
courts or Congress. 

In the presence of and the consideration of this question there 
should be neither sectionalism nor j^artisanship, btit a mighty rally- 
ing of all the citizenship of the country who believe that ours is a 
government of law, not of men ; of constitution, not of clamor. 

THE CONSTITUTION WHAT IS IT ? 

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the 
land, on whose broad base rests the entire fabric of our Govern- 
ment. It is not a set of rules, but a set of principles. Hamilton 
spoke of it as " a bill of rights " of the Union, " in which we must 
place confidence; must give power." 

James Wilson characterized the Constitution as " the charter ^f 
the people's nationality." 

John Marshall defined it as " our ordinance of national life." Its 
central, its dominating note is, " We. the people." 

While it proceeds directly from them and its powers are exercised 
for their benefit, nevertheless it is more than influence, it is more 
than sentiment, for neither influence nor sentiment are government. 

Valuable as Jefferson's services w^re to the Government, he never 
knew that sentiment is not government. '^ 

How fortunate for the American Commonwealth that the ideas of 
Hamilton prevailed both at Philadelphia and at Appomattox. 

ITS AUTHOES. 

All wisdom or virtue did not die with the fathers ; nevertheless if 
our Government should survive" for' a thousand years it is question- 



6 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 

able if it will look upon a finer body of men than those who sat in 
Philadelphia in 1787 to frame the Constitution. 

In acumen and equipment Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, 
Madison, Wilson, Mason, Wythe, the two Morrises, the two Pinck- 
neys, and the rest will not suffer by comparison with any aggrega- 
tion of illustrious men of any land or any age. 

Modern statesmen and lawmakers have been borrowing from the 
product of their intellects ever since they wrought for us — yea, are 
borrowing to-day in our land and in other lands. 

Does not wisdom and sound discretion suggest that before we 
attempt to overhaul the machinery of government, which has here- 
tofore been equal to every emergency, we do not bungle the job? 

Humanity witli all its fears, 

With all the hopes of future years, 

Is hanging breathless on thy fate. 

FROM WHAT TO WHAT ? 

Young as it is, it is the oldest of written constitutions. 

It has stood the test of time and served as a model for other nations 
in quest of a framework of government strong, symmetrical, and just. 

It transformed our country from chaos into cosmos. Only the pen 
of a Dante and the brush of a Dore could possibly portray the hateful 
conditions which prevailed in the 13 liberated States, so called, at 
the close of the Revolutionary struggle and up to the adoption of the 
Federal Constitution. 

Of that situation Dr. John Lord says : 

We were a league of emancipated colonies drifting into anarchy. * * * 
Our condition at the end of the War of the Rebellion, when we had a debt of 
three thousand millions and general demoralization, was an Elysium compared 
with that of our fathers at the close of the Revolutionary Wai" — no central 
power, no constitution, no government, with poverty, agricultural distress, and 
uncertainty, and the prostration of all business; no national eclat — a mass of 
rude, unconnected, and anarchic forces threatening to engulf us in worse evils 
than those from which we had fled. 

WHAT ITS AUTHORS HAD IX MIND. 

The framers of the Constitution did not seek to circumvent the 
popular will. They did seek, however — and fortunate it is for the / 
Republic that th^y succeeded — to prevent sudden gusts of populair 
passion from working the overthrow or impairment of its provisions? 

The makers of the Constitution believed in the supremacy of the 
popular will, but wisely safeguarded the instrument so that its 
clauses could only be changed or corrected upon the maturest reflec- 
tion and not in the white heat of passion. 

They built with consummate care and skill a compact and complete 
system of representative government, with two Houses of Congress, 
whose Members should l>e elected for different terms and in different 
manner — one a step farther removed from popular clamor than the 
other, but both resting on the popular will. 

They provided for an Executive with large powers and. placed the 
veto in his hands. 

They also established a Federal judiciary as the last link, and in 
many respects the strongest, in the interlocking chain. In so doing 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES — ^ITS FBIENDS AND FOES. 7 

they made provision for the ultimate solution of the more perplexing 
governmental problems. 

This august tribunal, from the first hour of its existence to the 
present moment, has been true to the great trust reposed in it, and 
stands to-day as the defender of the Constitution and the protector of 
the rights of the people. 

Early guided by the prescience of John Marshall, it invoked the 
spirit of the instrument, and, applying the principles of reasonable 
interpretation, made it flexible enough to meet new problems and 
changing conditions. 

The Supreme Court has been characterized as " the living voice of 
the Constitution." 

Of it the Marquis de Marbois said : 

It is a power which has no guards, no palaces, no treasures, no armies, but 
truth and wisdom — its splendor consists in justice and the publicity of its judg- 
ments. 

William Wirt's encomium is worthy of remembrance : 

If truth, and faith, and honor, and justice have fled from every other part of 
our country, we shall find them here. 

A GOVERNMENT MAKER. 

The statesman who probably had more to do in shaping the char- 
acter of our institutions and starting the ship of state upon a steady 
keel than any other, was Alexander Hamilton. 

Of him Guizot declares : 

There is not in the Constitution of the United States an element of order, 
of force, of duration, which he has not powerfully contributed to introduce into 
it and cause to predominate. 

His work remains, growing with the growth of the Nation and . 
constantly making for governmental security. 

Hamilton clearly described the iceberg in the track of our Titanic, 
and strove to save her from colliding with it. 

Never was man's judgment more accurate than his, when he said : 

Too much power leads to despotism, too little to anarchy, and both in the 
end to the ruin of the people. 

He has been falsely accused of being in favor of a monarchy. 
Upon this subject he said : 

The idea of introducing, a monarchy or aristocracy into this country is one 
of those visionary things that none but madmen could mediate * * *, but 
if we incline too much to democracy we shall soon shoot into monarchy * * *. 
The fabric of the American Empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the con- 
sent of the people. 

" A GREAT MAN, BUT NOT A GREAT AMERICAN ? " 

A distinguished American, President Elect Wilson, recently pro- 
nounced Hamilton to be " a great man," but, in his judgment, " not 
a great American," following this by the statement that " Hamilton 
believed that the only people who could understand the Government, 
and therefore the only people who were qualified to conduct it, were 
the men who had the biggest financial stake in the commercial and 
industrial enterprises of the country." 



8 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES — ITS FBIENDS AND FOES. 

This latest assault upon Hamilton from so high a source is regret- 
table. That it is erroneous is easily and conclusively demonstrable. 

"A great man, but not a great American ? " 

One can not but wonder if he was not starting the career of a 
"great American," even as a boy of 17 when he stood in the open 
fields of New York and made his masterly plea in defense of the 
cause of the colonists, and in the same year and the next entered the 
lists as a pamphleteer and wrote that series of luminous and con- 
vincing articles which bowled over the ablest apologists of the 
cause of the British Government — articles the authorship of which 
was attributed to the greatest patriots and thinkers of the day. 

One can not but wonder if he did not display the quality of " a 
great American " when as a boy, recent and poor emigrant as he 
was from the British West Indies, having taken his stand in favor 
of the rights of the colonists, and being offered every inducement of 
position and fortune to leave the Patriot cause and join that of the 
Tories, he rejected such overtures with indignant scorn. 

Is there no suggestion of greatness as an American in his letter to 
Robert Morris, penned at the age of 23, written in a military camp 
on a drumhead, in which he outlined a project for the establishment 
of a national bank to save the crazy confederation from bankruptcy, 
a project which was adopted at a later date; and the same year 
evolved a complete and comprehensive scheme of government, which 
he communicated to Congress through James Duane, which scheme, 
as Garfield well says, contained the essential features of the Consti- 
tution which was adopted seven years later, and under which we 
live to-day? 

One can not but wonder if he did not arise to the dignity of " a 
great American " when he held the pen of the Army all through the 
stormy years of the Revolutionary struggle, sharing the hardships 
and perils, and being first in the confidence of Washington, exposing 
as he did the cabals and intrigues aimed at the overthrow of his 
chief, thus discomfiting his enemies ? 

One can not but wonder if he did not display something of the 
mettle of a great American when he covered the retreat of Washing- 
ton's army at the battle of Long Island; bravely and skillfully de- 
fended the passage of the Raritan, finally crossing in a skiff amid a 
hailstorm of bullets, and led the charge that carried the last redoubt 
at Yorktown? 

But if these are insufficient credentials of his greatness as an Ameri- 
can, does not his incessant activity in behalf of a stronger form of 
Government during the awful years that followed the War of the 
Revolution, and particularly his labors in connection with the con- 
ventions at Annapolis and Philadelphia, which resulted in the birth 
of the American Constitution, entitle him to be called " a great 
American " ? 

But if it shall be said that he desired the frame of Government to 
be stronger than that which was ultimately adopted, do not the 
articles of the Federalist, our greatest American classic, in explana- 
tion, exposition, and defense of the Constitution, entitle him to be 
called " a great American '' ? • 

Again, by wresting victory from the jaws of assured defeat at 
Poughkeepsie, thus saving the vote of New York for its ratification, 



OON'STITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 9 

and probably the Constitution itself, has he not earned the right to , 
be classed as " a great American "? V^ 

Can it be said that the man who saved our national honor in the / 
first instance by insisting that the Government should undertake to 
pay all of its just obligations, as well as the obligations of the States, 
incurred in the War of Independence, was not " a great American " ? 

That the author of our financial system, which a great historical 
writer, Dr. John Lord, declares "was the work of one man who 
worked alone, as Michael Angelo worked upon the ceiling of the 
Sistine Chapel," was not a great American? He who, as Webster 
says, " smote the rock of the national resources and abundant streams 
^f revenue gushed forth. He who touched the dead corpse of the 
public credit and it sprang upon its feet. The fabled birth of 
'Minerva from the brain of Jove was hardly more sudden than the 
financial system of the United States as it burst from the conception 
of Alexander Hamilton." 

If the foregoing is insufficient to stamp him as " a great American " 
(British waif as he was when he came to our shores), there is the 
foreign policy of this Government of strict neutrality regarding the 
difficulties between other nations, to which the utmost publicity 
should be given, which was adopted and promulgated at his sugges- 
tion, to plead in his behalf. 

Not stopping to dwell upon the doctrine of the " implied powers " 
of the American Constitution, without which the organic law would 
have been utterly inadequate to meet the exigencies of government 
and which was born of his prescience, one can not but conclude that 
the doctrine which has come to be known as the Monroe doctrine and 
which sprang of his sleepless vigilance in behalf of American inter- 
ests and institutions, certainly stamps him as being anything but a 
little American ! 

If this be not enough, one might point to the fact that he first 
enunciated the doctrine of protection to American industries and 
America's labor, and thereby laid the foundations of America's in- 
dustrial greatness and prosperity ; and that to him more than to any 
•other man we are indebted for the splendid system of military and 
naval education and discipline which has made our Army and our 
Navy invincible in war, and given us a commanding position among 
the nations of the earth. 

Should further proof be demanded that he was " a great Ameri- 
can," as well as a great man, it is supplied in abundance by the fact 
that despite the denunciation of his policies by his ancient adversary, 
Thomas Jefferson, and the pledge of their destruction if given the 
opportunity, nevertheless when Jefferson and his partv were in- 
trusted with supreme political power they ran the Government on 
the hated Hamilton roadbed and rails without changes whatsoever. 

But should a doubt remain as to his greatness as an American, 
when one stops to consider that both in war and peace Washington 
and Hamilton were as one on every great project, either of military 
movement or governmental policy, surely if Hamilton fails to meas- 
ure up as " a great American," then certainly Washington fails also. 
'He possessed the confidence, affection, and esteem of Washington 
from first to last, and one who pays a tribute to his greatness as a 
man and denies to him greatness as an American, likewise challenges 



10 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FKIENDS AND FOES. 

the place, if not the character, of the Father of his Country in Ameri- 
can history. 

Of him Washington said : 

In judguieut he is iutuitively great. 

Shall the meed of greatness as an American be denied him who 

said: 

Let the 13 States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble union, concur 
in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all trans- 
Atlantic affairs or influences, and able to dictate the terms of the connection 
between the Old and the New World. (Fed., XI.) 

And again: 

We are laboring to establish in this country principles more and more national 
and free from all foreign ingredients, so that we may be neither Greeks nor 
Trojans, but truly Americans. (Letter to R. King.) 

One wonders if Washington could have been mistaken in his judg- 
ment of Hamilton as " a great American " when he sent his Secretary 
of the Treasury — think of it, his Secretary of the Treasury — to sub- 
due an insurrection which had broken out in western Pennsylvania 
against the Federal authority? 

If he indeed was not a great American, when, after he resigned 
from the Treasury in 1795 to enable him to earn money enough to 
discharge his debts and provide for the needs of his family, he still 
kept in the closest and most intimate touch with Washington and the 
members of his official family, and from his law office in New York 
advised the administration upon nearly every matter of importance? 

Likewise, during the administration of John Adams, when that 
brusque old patriot had occasion to complain more than once that 
Hamilton was still in the Cabinet, and that even his own messages to 
Congress were largely written by Hamilton? 

Is not the true test of greatness this — that influence remains after 
power is gone? 

Tried by this test (and how few there are who can endure it) 
Hamilton's influence, both with his party and the country, suffered 
no diminution whatsoever. 

That this powerful influence was directed solely for the hone 
and the welfare of the Nation, his entire public record proves be- 
yond peradventure. In public position or in private life he was ever 
the unswerving champion of national honor. He carried the burden 
of the Nation's welfare continually. From his law office in New 
York, writing to Senator Ruf us King, he says : 

The unnecessary and capricious and abominable assassination of the national 
honor by the rejection of the propositions respecting the unsubscribed debt in 
the House of Representatives haunts me every step I take, and afflicts me more 
than I can express. To see the character of the Government and the country 
so sported with, exposed to so indelible a blot, puts my heart to the torture. 

I conjure you, my friend, make a vigorous stand for the honor of your coun- 
try ! Measure swords in the Senate with the gi*eat slayer of public faith — 
the hackneyed veteran in the violation of public engagements. * * * Dig. 
play the difference between an able statesman and the man of subtleties. Root 
out the distempered and noisome weed which is attempted to be planted in our 
political garden to choke and wither in its infancy the fair plant of public 
credit. 

If none of these achievements considered singly is sufficient to 
place Hamilton in the galaxy of American greatness, surely taken 



OONSTITUTIOjSr OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 11 

together they challenge the correctness of the estimate of his dis- 
tinguished critic. 

What other American has contributed so generously to the great- 
ness and glory and perpetuity of the American Republic ? 

It is hardly conceivable that the distinguished scholar who used 
the language above quoted could have weighed his words and meas- 
ured their meaning. 

Again, while it is true that Hamilton desired to secure the interest 
of men with the " biggest financial stake " in the new Government, 
he has not read history aright who insists that Hamilton believed 
that they were the only people " who could understand government, 
and therefore the only people who were qualified to conduct it." 

In the first place, Hamilton, though possessed of great financial 
ability, which might have brought him large financial returns, lived 
and died a poor man, of whom Talleyrand said, after seeing his light 
burning at midnight in his chambers in New York : 

I have seen one of the wonders of the world — a man who has made the fortune 
of a nation laboring all night to support his family. 

Proofs are to be found throughout his writings to disprove the 
assertion made by his distinguished critic. 

It will be remembered that the preamble of the Constitution (of 
which he is the author) starts out with the words, " We, the people 
of the United States ; " not " We, the men who have the biggest 
financial stake." 

It will also be noticed that every article of the Federalist which 
he wrote, 63 in number, starts out with the words, " To the people 
of the State of New York " ; not " To the men who have the biggest 
financial stake." 

Running all through the Federalist and his serious writings are 
to be found expressions which refute the accusation made. Thus : 

It is impossible that the people could be long deceived. (Fed., XXVI.) The 
foundations of our National Government should be deeper than in the mere 
sanction of delegated authority. The fabric of American Empire ought to rest 
on the solid basis of the consent of the people. The streams of national 
power ought to flow immediately fi*om that pure original foundation of all 
legitimate authority. (Fed., XXII.) 

Hamilton, it is true, wished to strengthen the new Government 
at a time when it was beset with foes from within and without. He 
desired, it is true, to interest men of large financial stake in the 
Government, but he did not do this for them and their selfish inter- 
ests, but for the Nation and its highest welfare. 

His aim was not the supremacj^ of a class, but the supremacy and 
success of the Nation as a whole. 

He wanted to win the fealty of the people from State to Nation. 
He was not only great as a financier but as a nation builder. 

More than any other man of his day he had the true concept of 
the Nation in his mind ; not simply to create and sustain the credit 
of the Government, but to strengthen the pillars of the Republic, to 
cement the States into a consolidated, operating, and compact union. 

No ! He was not the prophet nor the champion of the capitalistic 
class. He was the prophet and the champion of the American 
Union. As such he used the means at his command to accomplish 
this patriotic, this beneficent purpose, one of which was the men who 
had the biggest financial stake in the industries and commerce of 



12 COXSTITUTIOK OF THE TXITED STATES — ITS FRIENDS AND FOBS. 

the countiy. AVhy should he not do so, when by so doing he could 

help to save and strengthen the Union ? 
There is nothing in public life- 
Declares Elihu Boot — 

of which a man gets more tired thiiu he does of lying and humbug. It is very 
hard for all of us to tell the truth when we are talking to the people. It is 
^ery hard for all of us to tell the truth when we think it will hurt us. 

Hamilton was the soul of candor and a stranger to subterfuge 
and chicanery. He never was and never could be a timeserver or 
a demagogue. He rang true at all times and never placed his own 
ambitions in the way of the success of his principles. 

The electric needle is not truer to the pole than his allegiance to 
the cause of American independence — the solidarity and security of 
the American Nation — and the protection of the American people 
under the regis of liberty regulated by law. 

How truly he spoke for his time and for all time Avhen he said: 

A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for 
the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the 
firmness and efficiency of Government. 

The War of the Rebellion was fought to determine the question 
which had been uppermost ever since the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion, whether this Government of the people, for the people, and by 
the people was a rope of sand or an indissoluble union of inde- 
structible States. 

That momentous question was left to and settled by the sword. 
That settlement vindicated the farseeing statesmanship of Alexander 
Hamilton. 

^ No finer tribute, or more just, was ever paid by one man to an- 
"other than that of Ridpath, the historian, to*Hamilton, the states- 
man : 

When Daniel Webster made his powerful plea for the Constitution he was 
the living oracle of the dead Hamilton. * * * When the immortal Lin- 
coln put out his great hand in the shadows of doubt and agony and groped 
and groped to touch some pillar of support, it was the hand of Hamilton that 
he clasped in the darkness. 

When on the afternoon of the 3d of July, Pickett's Virginians went on their 
awful charge up the slopes of Gettysburg, they met on the summit, among the 
jagged rocks, the invincible lines of blue who were there to i-ise victorious or 
never to rise at all : but it was not Meade who commanded them, nor Sickles, 
nor Hancock, nor Lincoln; behind those dauntless and heroic lines, rising like a 
sublime shadow in the curling smoke of battle, stood the figure of Alexander 
Hamilton. The Civil War was his conflict, Chickamaugua and Chancellorsville 
were his anguish, and Appomatox his triumph. When the grim-visaged and 
iron-hearted Lee offered the hilt of his sword to the silent man of Galena It 
was the spirit of disruptive democi-acy doing obeisance to Alexander Hamilton. 

Then and there the battle of the Constitution was fought and won. 
]\Iust it be fought over in our day ? 

It is for the American people to say. 

Not a great American I What in the name of high lieaven con- 
stitutes " a great American " ? 

What further proofs are required? 

What- additional achievements of lasting benefit to country and 
countrymen is it necessry still to marshal to establish his title to 
greatness as an American? 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 13 

Oh, for a dispassionate judgment and a just appreciation of tlie 
matchless labors of an American who was the " oracle and guide " of 
Washington, both in war and peace, whom Marshall ranked next to 
Washington, and whom Niebuhr, the German historian, voicing the 
opinion of the profoundest students of government the world over, 
declares to have been " great as the greatest." 

THE IMPLIED POAVERS. 

The Constitution is not a lifeless clod, but a living organism " ex- 
panded to its proper proportions." 

Under Hamilton's doctrine of the implied powers — that " if the 
power is necessary to the purpose of the Constitution it may be 
implied from the powers expressed " — the supreme law of the land is 
not a blind alley leading nowhere, but a broad thoroughfare on which 
the Nation has traveled from feebleness to greatness and prosperity 
undreamed of, and on which we may if we will, and we will if we 
are wise, continue to tread with perfect safety for centuries to come. 

This doctrine, firmly established through judicial construction 
under Marshall, has relieved the Constitution of its rigidity, imparted 
to its meaning all necessary elasticity, and given to the Government 
possibilities of expansion so gi-eat as to obviate the necessity of its 
frequent amendment. 

CHECKS AND BALANCES. 

In speaking of our frame of government Judge John F. Dillon 
says: 

The devices whicli our constitutions provide to prevent precipitate action of 
the popular vpill are single and simple in principle, but elaborate, though not 
complex, in arrangement. They may thus be grouped and shortly stated: (») 
Three coordinate departments and the separation and distribution of all of the 
powers of the Government into these departments, each checking the other ; 
(&) a system of representation with a double chamber, each a check on the 
othe?; (c) the insertion of the guaranties of primordial and fundamental 
rights — Magna Oharta enlarged and perfected — into the Constitution; (d) 
distribution of powers between the States and the Federal Union; and (e) an 
independent judiciary, made the guardian of the Constitution, with the crowning 
power and duty to declare unconstitutional statutes to be void — all to the end 
that there may be secured a government of laws and not of men. 

Again, commenting upon the Federal Constitution, he says: 

I only add here that this system of checks and balances which the framers 
of our Government contrived, and which in its totality constitutes our consti- 
tutions, has but the single ultimate purpose of curbing the unfettered exercise 
of the popular will, and it demonstrates how thoroughly they realized the 
dangerous and destructive force of that will if it were not put under effective 
restraints.v Unrestrained, it would be — to borrow an illustration from Schiller — 
like the path of the lightning or of the cannon ball. 

The American Government is unique in that it presents to the 
world the spectacle of a free and sovereign people voluntarily cir- 
cumscribing the unrestrained exercise of their own authority — in 
other words, protecting themselves against themselves. 

One of England's greatest statesmen and publicists, Edmund 
Burke, recognized the reason and necessity of such restraints when 
he said : 

Society requires not only the passions of individuals should be subjected, 
but that even in the masses and body, as well as in the individuals, the inclina- 



14 CONSTITUTIOX OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FEIENDS AND FOES. 

tions of men should be thwarted, their will controlled, and their passions 
brought into subjection. This can only be done by a power out of themselves, 
and not in the exercise of its functions subject to that will and to those passions 
which it is its office to bridle and subdue. In this sense the restraints on men 
as well as their liberties are to be reckoned among their rights. 

It is only by continued respect for the restraints of the Constitu- 
tion that the permanence of our institutions is assured. 

LAW AND OBDER. 

Wordsworth was not looking through a glass darkly when he 
wrote : 

I am a lover of liberty, but am aware that liberty can not exist apart from 
order. 

Emerson also speaks of — 

This law of laws by which the universe is made habitable. 

If the history of mankind proves anything beyond peradventure, 
it is that human liberty is as insecure as snow upon the lips of Vesu- 
vius, without law and order. 

These are indispensable to the equilibrium of society. 

Instead of a clarion call, has the voice of history come to be a 
meaningless mumble ? 

OPERATION AND OPPOSITION. 

By far the most striking political paradox to be seen in the century 
and a quarter of American histoi*y is that the democracy of Jeffer- 
son, whenever put into practice, has savored of despotism, while the 
so-called aristocracy of Hamilton has saved the principle of true 
democracy — government by and of the people. 

In France unbridled democracy, shrieking, " Liberty, equality, 
and fraternity I " and wallowing in billows of blood, culminated in 
Bonapartism. 

In the United States it found expression in the institution of slav- 
ery, the doctrines of nullification, the aristocracy of the South, and 
in the most un-civil war of Avhich history speaks. 

It is only under the operations of a strong and stable national gov- 
ernment and the subordination of the parts to the whole, that real 
democracy is secured or secure. 

The source of political power is the people, and the people have 
erected the Constitution as the concrete expression of their will so far 
as the form and frame of government are concerned. To protect it 
with vigilance and perfect it with prudence should be our task — but 
accursed be he who would either destroy or devitalize it. 

Under whatever party name he may operate, he is the enemy of 
the Republic. 

It was said by Aristotle: 

Virtue is a me:in between two extremes, either of which is a vice. 

Between the extremes of absolutism on the one hand and unbridled 
democracy on the other lies the mean of representative government — 
the kind of government founded b}' the fathers, with its admirable 
system of checks and balances. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES — ITS FEIENDS AND FOES. 15 

If under it oppression or favoritism have crept in, let us extirpate 
these evils, but let us not destroy the framework of the Government 
in so doing. 

Let us rid the elm of the beetle, not by destroying the elm but by 
destroying the beetle. 

PATHFINDERS V. FAULTFINDERS. 

This plan of government so cleverly devised and skillfully con- 
structed, with its three departments — executive, legislative, and judi- 
cial, coordinate but separate — imparted such strength, symmetry, 
and balance to the structure that it reminded Winthrop " of the 
wonderful rocking stone reared by the Druids, which the finger of 
a child could set in motion, but which the might of an army could 
not move from its base." 

In other words, the men who made the Constitution thought 
thereby to create a democratic framework of government which 
could not be converted into an autocracy on the one hand or a mob- 
ocracy on the other. 

This was the task of the fathers. How well they performed that 
task, 125 years of growth from feeble beginnings to a proud position 
among the foremost nations on the earth bear eloquent witness. 

Under its protecting arms life, liberty, and property have up to 
this time been secure. 

One would suppose that a charter of government under which 
such marvelous results have been achieved would be regarded with 
respect, even reverence, and accorded better treatment than that 
said to be given to the " houn' dog of the Ozarks." 

But so malignant is the malady of faultfinding nowadays, and so 
ripping the pace of so-called progressivism that the lessons of the 
past seem to have lost their potency, and the guideboards along the 
highway of history appear to be only useful for kindling the fires 
of revolution. 

The motto which American malcontents have emblazoned on their 
banners reads: "Whatever is, is wrong." 

Such a shibboleth is sure to attract every sinister element of society^ 

Such a propaganda, if successful, spells the ruin of the Republic. 

Armed treason and insurrection aimed no more deadlj^ blows at 
the vitals of the Nation than these latter-day heresies. 

NATURAL RIGHTS AND CTVIC DUTIES. 

So much is said of " natural rights " ; so little of " civic duties." 

A selfish citizenship spells dishonor and ultimate disaster to the 
State. 

This has been the bane of politics from the earlier period until 
now. 

It was this spirit which well-nigh wrecked the American Common- 
wealth in its infancy. 

It was this spirit against which Hamilton strove in his daring 
and desperate struggle to save the national honor, saving which he 
saved the American Union from irretrievable disaster. 

This is the formidable dragon with which we must always con- 
tend, for onl}'' quickened conscience and sleepless vigilance can save 
the State. 



16 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES — ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 

Seneca said : " To obey God is freedom." 

The truth is, there are no rights without duties ; there is no liberty 
without law. Whenever a right is conferred, a duty is imposed. 
Whenever this underlying principle is ignored in respect to govern- 
ment, one of two unfortunate alternatives is sure to follow — anarchy 
or absolutism. 

Socialistic democracy stands for all rights and no duties; all top 
and no roots. Its doom is inevitable. 

The State also has duties as well as rights, and it is the duty of 
the State, as the preamble to the Constitution provides : "To pro- 
mote the general welfare." Thus the obligations of the citizen and 
the State are reciprocal in nature. 

There are wrongs which need to be redressed, and there not only 
exists a desire but a determination on the part of the people's repre- 
sentatives to equalize opportunity as much as possible and restrain 
unjust privilege. 

Progress has been made, and is going forward steadily, to curb 
the few and to protect the many. This is as it should be, but after 
all no government, however just or equitable its laws, can solve the 
riddle of inequalities; no government in fact of which history speaks 
has made or can make all men alike or equally prosperous. 

With the same equality of opportunity in the same household, 
what surprising results are manifested among its members! Two 
boys start out in life from the same rooftree, watched over by the 
same sleepless parental vigilance, educated in the same schools and 
by the same teachers, and are given the same boost in business, and 
in the course of time one stamps the word " success " upon his ca- 
reer, while the other writes the word " failure " upon his. Who is 
responsible for this disparity? The parents? Their devotion to 
each suffered no diminution, nor was there any element of discrimi- 
nation in their solicitude. 

The Government? As well censure the Government because some 
men waddle when they walk, while others wabble when they talk. 

what's in a name? 

Much is said of progresivism and reactionaryism. There are 
well-nigh as many crimes committed in the name of language as of 
liberty. 

Republican government is progressive government ; whereas nearly 
all the so-called progressive remedies offered to cure conditions that 
offend are retrogressive in character. 

Nicholas Murray Butler uses an apt illustration in natural history 
to illustrate this point: 

tl may be said of the ameba that it walks upou its stomach and digests 
with its legs, because it digests with what it walks with and walks with what 
it digests with. As yet there has been no differentiation of structure or func- 
tion, but the ameba with its very simple structure is certainly not in advance of 
the mammal with its highly organized structure, its differentiation of function, 
and its complicated activities. The movement to substitute direct democracy 
for representative government is a movement back from the age of the mam- 
mal to the age of the ameba. Of course it is conscionable that such a move- 
ment backward is desirable, but if so let us call it by its right name. 

I am aware that it is fashionable to charge that those who are 
unwilling to subscribe to every fad or fallacy of so-called reform 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ITS PKIENDS AND FOES. 17 

which is advanced from whatsoever quarter are reactionary and 
distrustful of the people. 

Some of us stood up against the fury of the gale for the debase- 
ment of our currency and were classed as enemies of the " plain 
people," but subsequent events have shown who were the real friends* 
and who the real foes of the " plain people." 

To-day we refuse to surrender our convictions on the question of 
converting the government of the fathers into a socialistic democ- 
racy: 

The path of progress does not skirt the highway of pure democ- 
racy, for pure democracy never has been a success in the history of 
mankind. 

Following up that path to the remotest periods we find passion 
and perversion, riot and revolution, wrong and retrogression every- 
where in evidence. 

What the country needs to-day more than anything else is the 
" free and unlimited coinage " of sanity. 

Until the spotlight was recently thrown on the situation by the 
recovery from the bottom of the blue Mediterranean of the remains 
of a Koman galley which had been buried in the mud and slime of 
20 centuries, showing, among other things on board, the statuette 
of a female figure in a hobble slrirt trying to execute the turkey 
trot, it was commonly supposed that the aforesaid accoutrements 
and accomplishments represented the progressive spirit of our age 
as distinguished from the sleepy civilization of the past. 

What a shock to be rudely awakened to the fact that much of our 
boasted modern progress is dug up from the debris of the centuries. 

PROPOSED CHANGES INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM. 

What is the program proposed to restore to the people that which 
their friends who protest too much declare they have surely lost 
somewhere, somehow, sometime, to wit, self-government? 

To state it as briefly and as succinctly as possible, they propose to 
remove all obstacles which have heretofore intervened to make hasty 
and inconsiderate political action impossible, and which, up to the 
present moment, have protected the rights of the minority as well as 
of the individual — by emasculating the representative system 
through the compulsory initiative and referendum, and eviscerating 
the judiciary through the recall. 

This program and propaganda may well cause patriots to ponder, 
and pondering to shudder, for these are poisonous barbs aimed at 
the very vitals of the Eepublic. 

What are these schemes ? Let us examine them for a few moments. 

First in order is the compulsory initiative and referendum. I say 
compulsory, because under our present Constitution the right of peti- 
tion is guaranteed to our people, and when exercised by them gen- 
' erally is morally certain to receive respectful consideration from the 
legislative body, whether National or State, to which it is presented. 
/Under the present system the legislative body is responsible for 
whatever action in its wisdom is taken. 

^ Under the proposed system, however, the members of Congress or 
4f the State legislature become mere automatons to enact such laws 
as the people shall initiate. 
S. Doc. 1108, 62-3 2 



f 



18 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FKIENDS AND FOES. 

The promoters of this plan have in mind legislation upon the peti- 
tion of from 5 to 10 per cent of the electorate and demanding a vote 
of the people thereon. 

Where is the community in which the signature of such a percent- 
age of the voters could not be readily obtained to a petition praying 
for anything whatsoever. 

It is obviously a mania with many men to append their names to 
petitions. In case of failure to secure the proposed legislation in the 
first instance, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the same people 
could be induced to sign again and again, thus keeping the legislative 
waters in a ferment and the voters spending a large part of their 
time going to and returning from the polls. In a little while they 
would balk on going altogether. 

What a fertile field for political promoters and parasites ! (Bosses 
are of course impossible in such a millenium.) What a prismatic 
prospect for the demagogue ! 

What of the personnel of the legislature. National and State? 
What kind of timber would offer itself to be sawn to slivers to placate 
a small fraction of the electorate? 

What high-minded and self-respecting citizen would consent to 
submit to the degradation involved in the acceptance of such a posi- 
tion, whatever the title or the perquisites? 

Would not our legislative bodies under such a system degenerate 
intellectually, morally, and politically? The inquiry answers itself. 

This is indeed a sweeping change in our governmental system, 
amounting to a revolution : for under a compulsory initiative and 
referendum a minority of the voters, even a small minority, as pre- 
viously suggested (which, of course, means a still smaller minority 
of the people) can compel the legislative body to enact any law they 
please and submit it to the electorate; whereas the majority may not 
want it or have the time or inclination to master its intricacies or 
fathom its subtle and selfish schemes. 

With no opportunity given for discussion or revision either by the 
electorate or the legislative body, the proposed measure is enacted 
into law and referred to the electorate for final acceptance or rejec- 
\ tion as the case may be. 

\ The successors in Congress of Webster and Clay and Adams can 
only hop out on the so-called legislative perch and say, " Cuckoo," 
whenever a sufficient number of names is attached to the string that 
sets the mechanism in motion. 

Why have any representatives whatever, if they are without 
representative authority ? 

Why not abolish the Congress and legislatures of the States, and 
substitute therefor automatic registering machines? 

Why not, if the legislative body is stripped of discretion as well as 
dignity ? 

I am aware that the charge is made that our representatives are 
prone to exercise their own judgment at times instead of blindly and 
obediently surrendering the convictions of a lifetime to the opinions 
of their constituents, swept off their feet it may be by the tale of 
wrongs they suffer; such, for instance, as " The crime of '73," and the 
infallible remedy, " 16 to 1 or bust." 



CONSTITUTION OP THE UNITED STATES ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 19 

Perhaps the real duty of a representative to his constituents can 
not be better stated than in the language of Edmund Burke to the 
electors of Bristol. Said he: 

It ought to be the happiness and gloi-y of a representative to live in the 
strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved commu- 
nication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with 
him ; their opinions high respect ; their business unremitting attention ; but his 
unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought 
not to sacrifice to you, to anj^ man, or to any set of men living. Your repre- 
sentative owes you not only his industry but his judgment, and he betrays, 
instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. You choose a repre- 
sentative, indeed, but when he is chosen he is not a member of Bristol, but a 
member of Parliament. 

How applicable the words of Burke to service in the Congress of 
the United States. 

In the old days " the mill boy of the slashes " became the leader 
of the masses, not their " chore boy," not their " hired man," as too 
many of our Members of Congress are by their constituents expected 
to be. If this is true to-day, what will it be to-morrow under the pro- 
posed system of direct government, together with the recall ? " The 
mill boy of the slashes " will then become the puppet of the masses. 

Under such an intolerable system there can be no leadership 
worthy the name. 

Dull mediocrity will sit in wisdom's seat and only pollywogs swim 
in the political pool. 
I A more preposterous proposition could not be imagined. 

To recapitulate for a moment: 

This device presupposes that those who sign the petition in the 
first place are fully advised as to the nature and necessity of the 
proposed legislation; in the second place, it precludes the opportu- 
nity for discussion or revision, either on the part of the petitioners 
or the lawmaking or rather law-echoing bocly ; and, in the third 
place, it also presupposes that the electorate, when it comes to vote, 
if it has either the time or inclination to keep abreast of a tenth part 
of the numerous proposition presented, will give that mature con- 
sideration to each matter which the committees of Congress are only 
able to bestow. 

Under this pernicious plan the representative bodies are reduced 
to impotency, while the powers of the Executive are necessarily 
enlarged. 

From such a situation to absolutism is a step almost imperceptible, 
and that step has alwa^vs been taken with the people as its sponsors. 

" Whispering she would ne'er consent — consented." 

As Henry Cabot Lodge so well says : 

When the representative principle has departed and only its ghost remains 
to haunt the Capitol, liberty has not lingered long beside its grave. The rise 
of the representative principle and its spread to new lands to-day marks the 
rise of popular government everywhere. Wherever it has been betrayed or 
cast down the government has reverted to despotism. When representative 
government has perished freedom has not long survived. 



-dbSffeOKSf-STOOD SQUARELY FOR THE UOJSIHTITUTION. 

The advocates of these schemes, in their excess of zeal, claim the 
patronage of Lincoln for their populistic program. The authentic 



20 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 

writings of Lincoln will be searched in vain for any semblance of 
censure of our frame of government or any sorf of support for the 
iroposition of an unbridled democracy. 

He was devotedly attached to the Constitution and jealous of any 
md all attempts to encroach upon its clauses. 

it he was ever faithful, and died a martyr to it. 

^Notwithstanding his hatred of slavery, his reverence for the Con- 
s£itution and the law was so great that he declared on more than one 
occasion that if a Member of Congress he would support a fugitive 
slave law. 

Speaking of the effect of the counting of slaves in congressional 
and electoral representation, he said: 

Now, all tliis is mauifestly unfair: yet I do not mention it to complain of 
it in so f;ir as it is already settled. It is in the Constitution, and I do not for 
that cause, bv for any cause, proiwse to destroyfcor alter, or disregard the 
Constitution/ I stand to it fairly, fully, and firmlw 

But it is asserted by some that his attitude with respect to the 
Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court shows that he was in favor 
of some scheme of recalling the judges and judicial decisions by pop- 
ular vote. 

It is true he believed the decision to be erroneous, but no reasonable 
construction of his acts or words gives the slightest encouragement to 
the suggestion that he favored a change of our governmental system 
providing for the recall of the judiciary. 

He did say. however, that he would resist it politically by voting, 
if in his power, for an act prohibiting slavery in United States terri- 
tory, and then try to induce the court to sustain the act in a new 
proceeding; or. in other words, reverse itself. It is no reflection 
upon the judiciary'' that courts, even the highest, have been known 
to do this. 

It is only by distortion that the utterances of Lincoln can be made 
to give the slightest moral or immoral support to the propaganda 
of populism. 

Standing at Gettysburg at the close of the rebellion, viewing with 
sad eyes its picturesque slopes billowed with the countless graves of 
the bravest and bonniest boys of America, and seeing in his mind's 
eye the newly made graves of other thousands scattered all through 
the war-ravaged and pain-racked land, sacrificed to save the Consti- 
tution and the Government of the fathers from extinction, he closed 
the briefest and the greatest speech of all the ages with the words : 

Tbftt government of the people, by. the people, and for the people shall not 
—perish. from the earth. 

What supreme sacrilege to say that Lincoln therein intended to 
repudiate or rebuke a government of law. 

Has it come to be that he who declares that this is a government of 
law, not men, is to be proscribed as an enemy of the people ? 

Should not the plain people pray night and morning to be deliv- 
ered from the friendship of multitudes of their professed friends? 

Has it come to be that an opponent of schemes to disrupt and 
destroy representative government shall be characterized as the enemy 
of the people and the friend of privilege? 

If so, some of us welcome the odiuui such an accusation involves. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 21 

Vice President Elect Marshall proves himself worthy of the family 
name he bears when he says, speaking of the aphorism " Vox populi, 
vox Dei " : 

The voice of the people is the voice of God. when the people kuow what they 
are talking about. 

THE RECALL. 

The next step in the/ program of so-called progressiveness is the 
recall. Whkt^f it inrpractice? 

Under the operations of the recall Washington, whose preeminence 
both in war and peace is acknowledged by all^ would unquestionably 
have been recalled from the Chief INIagistracy of the Na,tion as a 
result of his unpopularity in connection with the Genet episode. 

Lincoln, whose fame fills the earth and whose popularity as^ an 
American hero is unsurpassed, would certainly have shared a similar 
fate at the hands of the infuriate populace in 1862 and 1863. . 

Cleveland, "standing by like an iron wall" in 1893 against the 
furious assaults of his former political associates who were bent upon 
debauching the national currency and tarnishing the national honor, 
would have been ground to political powder if he could have been 
tl|rown into the hopper of the recall. 

IThat our country has in the past escaped such catastrophes as 
tiese — due to the strength and sanity of the Federal Government — 
should preclude the possibility of the serious consideration and ex- 
ploitation of this fatuous remedy for the public ills. 

Such a dose is infinitely more dangerous than the disease which it 
is intended to cure. 

PUBLIC OFFICIALS NOT CORRUPT. 

The favorite plea against the present tenure in office is that it tends 
to make public officials indifferent to the wishes of their constituents 
and careless of their honor — corrupt, in other words. 
5 There never was a time when public officials were more responsive 
to the will of the people, actuated by higher motives, or freer from 
corrupting influences. 

The truth is the rogue in office to-day is an exception so rare as 
to be almost a negligible factor. If he gets in at all, he can not stay 
long. 

Observation of and association with public men at the seat of 
government for a decade and a half has convinced me of their 
integrity and induces this assertion ungrudgingly. 

The public trust is rarely betrayed by public officials. Mistakes 
are made from time to time, but they are mistakes of head, not of 
heart. 

The morale of men in public life was never higher in any land or 
any age than it is in the United States of America at the present 
time. 

On the other hand, under the proposed system, founded as it is 
u distrust and conducted on suspicion, a public official is robbed of 
\ery ounce of independence, every atom of courage, as well as 
1 \-ery incentive tow^ard efficiency. 

The man of action and decision, if one can be found who will con- 
sent to such ignoble servitude, is conA'-erted into an angleworm. 



22 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES — ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 
THE SAME OLD FOES IN THE SAME OLD CLOTHES. 

I am aware that it is all the rage nowadays to treat with contempt 
the lessons of the past. 

Because the Greeks and Romans failed to solve the problem of self- 
government under a socialistic democracy, why should Ave, " the heirs 
of all the ages " (and the melting pot of all the nations), hesitate to 
make the experiment ? 

This is exactly the comment made by the people of other nations 
Avho have traveled the same road and shared the same fate. 

Greece, it is true, was so small that it has been called a " turnip 
patch " : and ancient Athens, in its palmiest days, was smaller in size 
than Denver; nevertheless, if you and I had walked the streets of 
Athens in the days of Pericles, in addition to him, we should have 
seen in the flesh the figures of Heroditus, Thucydides, Aeschylus, 
Euripides, Sophocles, Hippocrates, Democritus, Amaxagoras, Aris- 
tophanes. Phydias, and Socrates. 

It is no exaggeration to say that Athens alone in a single century 
produced more illustrious men than all the centuries and all the 
countries. 

This being the case, may I suggest this age of " gallop and gulp " 
can well afford to pause at the bier of this wonderful civilization and 
profit by its experiences. 

Aeschylus and Aristophanes were preachers of righteousness to the 
Athenians hastening from the uplands of law to the abyss of an- 
archy. But Athens stopped her ears to their message. Then Socrates 
came, alas, too late to save the situation, for the descent to Avernus 
was proceeding at accelerating pace. 

Plato, the pupil of Socrates, undertook to systematize the teachings 
of his master, and Aristotle, the pupil of Plato, placed the teach- 
ings of both on scientific foundations, declaring, as he did, that " Men 
should not think it slavery to live according to the rule of the con- 
stitution, for it is their salvation." 

Aristotle reviewed 158 constitutions, and tells us of the political 
situation in Athens under a socialistic democracy. Here, if any- 
where in the golden age of civilization and culture, a socialistic 
democracy would thrive, but not so. 

They had the proposed populistic remedies which are advocated 
to-day, including the recall. 

The Athenians named their generals by popular vote and recalled 
them in the same way. 

If a military leader failed to meet popular expectation, even 
though confronted with unforeseen and insurmountable obstacles, a 
popular election would be called and the general would be recalled. 

They recalled Aristides the Just. They recalled Alcibiades^- 
Thucydides. and Pericles. 

On one occasion they dispatched a general into Sicilj^ to conduct a 
military campaign, but before he arrived at his destination he was 
recalled. 

They paid their best friend and wisest philosopher, Socrates, in 
poison. 

O, yes! '• Tis a schoolboy's tale!" If only men and nations 
would profit thereby ! 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 23 

THE VIEWS OF A MODERN PUBLICIST. 

Convinced as he then Avas of the utter impracticability of these 
measures as applied to the mass of the people, Woodrow Wilson, in 
an address delivered in St. Louis in 1909, declared : 

You have heard a great deal lately about the govei-nment of the country by 
the people of the country, and I must say that it seems to me that we have 
been talking a great deal of nonsense. A government can he democratic only 
in the sense that it is a government restrained, controlled by public opinion. 
It can never be conducted by public opinion. "What I mean to say is this, that 
popular initiative is an inconceivable thing. Not only is popular initiative 
an inconceivable thing, but the initiative of a body of persons no more numer- 
ous than this audience is an inconceivable thing. * * * Lg^ ^g never dream, 
therefore, that any body of people can govern upon their own initiative ; they 
can do nothing of the kind. They can ask somebody to govern them ; they can 
criticize that person when he has attempted the task ; but they can not govern ; 
they can not originate measures; they can not originate even amendments to 
measures. All that must be done by a small number of persons. Every time 
anybody in this country thinks that the people are not taking part enough 
in the Government he suggests the necessity of something else the people 
ought to be asked to do in addition to what they are doing now, or, rather, in 
addition to what they are trying to do now, which is only a process of. 
With this newly favored method of " recall " exemplified in the Des Moines 
plan, and the newly popular devices of initiative and referendum, which will 
work only while they are novel and the interest in their use is fresh — and I 
am afraid that will not be long — it will make mere agents of those whom you 
trust with your city government and not representatives. I, for my part, would 
be willing to be a representatiA^e of the people, but I would not be willing to 
be an agent. 

A " TALE OF TAA^O CITIES." 

"By their fruits ye shall knoAv them." 

We are told that in Seattle a mayor Avas recalled because he Avas too 
lax in the enforcement of the liquor laws ; while in Tacoma, which is 
only a few miles distant, a mayor was recalled because he stopped a 
prize fight. True, the prize fight was forbidden by law, but the 
plain people, protesting against its enforcement, the officer sworn 
to enforce it was recalled — recalled for not permitting one pug to 
" slug another through the ropes," law or no law. 

Thus doth " government by tumult " operate. 

THE LAMP OF EXPERIENCE. 

The Avell-Avorn proverb " There is nothing new under the sun " 
applies to government as well as to other things. 

What men have done men are prone to do — more than that — what 
men have attempted to do and failed to accomplish other men com- 
ing later seem to have do doubt of their ability to perform. 

If the child would only accept the father's counsel and profit by 
his experience, what progress would he not make and what pitfalls 
Avould he not escape ! 

If the people of this generation would only listen to the voices of 
the past and shape their course by its instruction, the friends of 
good government could afford to leave the firing line. 

George Washington was not noted for epigrams, but coined one 
Avhich will live when he said, " Men must feel before they will see." 



24 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES— ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 

How like Hegel, who declared that: "What experience and history 
teach is this, that i>eople and governments have never learned any- 
thing from history or acted on the principles deduced from it." 

Alas that this should be so, for to shut one's eyes to the facts of 
history is to impeach one's sanity. 

Wliy not protect and perfect the present system instead of rushing 
like a Mad Mullah into the fatal chasm, wdiere lie the bleached car- 
casses of nations equally as promising as ours? 

Carlyle and Macaulay both predicted that the mud monsters of 
unbridled democracy would yet drag our Government down into 
their slimy ooze. 

Is this to be the ultimate fate of happy, proud America? 

Granted that the perils of individualism are great, the perils of 
unbridled democracy are greater. 

THE RECALL OF THE JUDICIARY. 

But the worst is yet to come. 

The recall of the judiciary is the capstone of the temple of topsy- 
turviness, which its builders proudly call progressiveness. 

It is the last word in the lexicon of folly. 

The recall of judicial decisions is equally revolutionary and repre- 
hensible. 

Its advocates ask in apparent seriousness, "Are not the judges the 
servants of the people; and, as such, have not the people the right 
to terminate their period of service at will? " 

The answer to this inquiry is easy and exposes the mistaken atti- 
tude of those who propound it. 

/ The judges are ])rimarily the sworn servants of the Constitution 
pnd the law, and as such it is for them to interpret the laAV as they 
find it, unmoved by the voice of clamor or the pleadings of popular 
favor. 

They are there, among other things, to protect the minority — and, 
^deed, this is the only defense the minority has — from the majority. 

Take away this protection and the minority is the helpless victim 
" a tyrannous majority. 
'They are there also to protect the individual from injustice. 

Clothe the majority with the prerogative to recall the judge in 
case he decides the case in favor of an unpopular member of the 
community and you place in the hands of the majority a cudgel 
Avith which to ]iound the rights of the minority and the individual 
into pulp. 

What of the judiciary under such control, with such a sword of 
Damocles suspended over its head? 

Farewell, a long farewell, to its independence, its self-respect, and 
its probity. 

To make the decisions of the court subject to revision at the polls 
with the view of recalling the judge if his decision does not meet 
Avith popular favor, or recalling the decision and substituting the 
view of the majority, is to subvert republican institutions and strike 
down the principles of free government under which w'e have 
achieved our present enviable place among the family of nations. 

What think you of the kidney and the caliber of the men who 
would consent to sit as judges subject to the waves of popular dis- 
approval set in motion from time to time by designing demagogues ? 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FEIENDS AND FOES. 25 

How long would it be, under the malign influence of such a sys- 
tem, before the bench would be occupied by sycophants and scoun- 
drels, the former with their ears never off the ground to save their 
own political porridge and the latter with hands outstretched to 
feather their financial nests against the time of recall ? 

In the interim plutocracy would thrive. 

How fortunate it is for the people of our day that the guaranties 
and limitations of the Constitution can not be snuffed out like Christ- 
mas-tree tapers ! 

How fortunate for the perpetuity of our free institutions that the 
authors of the Constitution made its amendment a matter of mature 
judgment and reflection rather than the result of hasty and incon- 
siderate action! 

That the recall is rated as a most effective bludgeon in the hands 
of the mob is shown by the deliverance of Eugene Y. Debs in the 
organ of the Socialist Party, Appeal to Reason. Speaking of the 
trials of the miscreants who placed the bombs under the building of 
the Los Angeles Times, and who in addition to wrecking that edifice 
hurled over a score of innocent lives into eternity, he said : 

The fight at the polls this fall will center around the adoption of the initia- 
tive, referendum, and recall amendments to the constitution. Under the pro- 
visions of the recall amendment the judges of the Supreme Court of California 
can be retired. These are men who will decide the fate of the kidnaped 
workers. Don't you see what it means, comrades, to have in the hands of an 
mtelligent. militant working class the political power to recall the present 
capitalist judges and put on the bench our own men? Was there ever such an 
opportunity for effective work? No; not since socialism first raised its crimson 
banner on the shores of Morgan's country. The election for governor and 
State officers of California does not occur till 1914, but with the recall at our 
command we can put our own men in office without waiting for a regular 
election. 

Surely comment is superfluous. 

In jjresenting these objections to the proposed plans to cure present 
evils, I shall not pretend that there are no abuses which call for cor- 
rection. 

Every upright member of the bar, every observing man in fact, 
whether a member of the bar or not, realizes keenly the abuses ancl 
miscarriages of justice which from time to time disgrace the ad- 
ministration of criminal jurisprudence — faults for which the judi- 
ciary is in no wise responsible and the remedy of which is entirely in 
the hands of the lawmakers of the various States whenever public 
opinion is sufficiently aroused as to demand the application of the 
necessary remedies. 

Let us not overlook the fact, however, that in the main justice even 
and exact is meted out to rich and poor alike — to the weak as well as 
to the powerful. 

Our higher courts are singularly free from corruption or favorit- 
ism, and after three decades of observation and experience in many 
Commonwealths and in courts, from the lowest to the highest, I am 
constrained to say that I have not had occasion to lose my faith in, 
or respect for, the American judiciary. 

The method provided by the Constitution for recalling an unfaith- 
ful judge is sufficient — and its wisdom has surely received emphatic 
vindication by the recent impeachment proceedings in the Senate of 
the United States. 



i 



26 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FKIENDS AND FOES. 

Under such a revolutionary system there would be constant need 
for prayer and supplication against the commission of crime in the 
name or justice; and a revision of the cry of Kipling's Recessional 
(as suggested by Henry D. Estabrook) to fit the conditions thereby 
created : 

Lord God of Hosts 

Be with us all — 

Lest we recall ! 

Lest we recall ! 

THE DIRECT PRIMARY, 

Recent trials of the complicated and cumbrous machinery' of the 
new primary system in Oregon, Massachusetts, Maryland, and else- 
where reveal its utter inadequacy. 

Under it only a small fraction of the electorate voice their pref- 
erence. If this be true in the infancy of the system what will it be 
later on? 

The principal objection to the old caucus and convention system 
Was that only a few of the voters attended them and that they were 
dominated by the machine politicians. 

As a matter of fact they were dominated by the machine politicians 
largely because the machine politicians largely attended them, while 
the mass of the electorate stayed away. 

Under the new system the same thing is likely to occur again after 
the novelty has worn away. 

In an address delivered by the Hon. Woodrow Wilson in St. Louis 
in 1909, he said : 

The direct primary was introduced in a city which I could name, greatly 
against the opposition of the local bosses, and it had not been operating two 
years before the bosses said : " Why, good gracious, we don't see how we got 
along without this." 

That does not proceed from the professor's chair ; that is what the 
bosses said. They did not see how they had got along without it. 

Elaborate your government ; place every officer upon his own dear 
little statute ; make it necessary for him to be voted for and you will 
not have democratic government. 

The direct primary was designed to punish the bosses and protect 
the people. 

Has it accomplished its purpose? 

Wherever tried the melancholy fact is revealed that only a small 
percentage of the electorate avail themselves of its privileges. 

Even in New Jersey, where but recently almost superhuman efforts 
were put forth to agitate the political atmosphere, considerably less 
than one-half of the legal voters went to the polls and recorded their 
preferences. 

In every Commonwealth, from Massachusetts to California, in 
which the experiment has been tried it is practically the same story. 

Disappointment and disillusionment have come all too quickly. 

If this be tme, while the scheme possesses the attraction of novelty, 
when money is poured out like water and every effort used. to induce 
the voters to visit the polls, what will be its fate when the novelty has 
worn away? 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FEIENDS AND FOES. 27 

As it is, the decision rests with a majority of a minority — not 
necessarily members of the political party by Vhich the primary is 
held. 

How futile the protection of the rights of the people under such a 
system ! 

Think you the bosses have any occasion to view it with terror or 
trepidation ? 

Simplicity is that for which the founders of the Government 
strove, whereas the proposed plans tend to confusion, and confusion 
inevitably leads to perversion. 

Witness the results in Massachusetts of the recent trial of the new 
system wherein one candidate for the Presidency of the United States 
captured a vote of preference, while his opponent captured the 
delegates. 

In its last analysis, the failure of the old system, whenever and 
wherever it has failed, was due to the indijfference of the American 
electorate. 

Under it they had the power if they chose to exercise it. 

Under the new system they will fare no better, for the scheme is 
cumbersome and impracticable. 

No surer device for the destruction of representative government 
could possibly be devised. 

Under it the use of money to influence the electorate, far from 
being curbed, is encouraged. Instead of the expenditure of moderate 
sums, hundreds of thousands of dollars have recently been poured out 
among the people in Massachusetts, Maryland, and Ohio, not to men- 
tion other Commonwealths. 

Thus the poor man's candidacy is made impotent. The primaries 
are packed with the votes of Socialists and other malcontents with 
our institutions. 

The kind of warfare which the new system engenders sooner or 
later will drive from the field every high-minded and self-respecting 
statesman in the land and leave the public interests in the hands of 
trimmers and toadeaters. 

Far from purifying the political stream, its waters will be choked 
with pollution. 

Only charlatans and crooks can abide such conditions. From the 
degradation of our politics to the destruction of our institutions is but 
a step. 

ELECTION OF SENATORS BY DIRECT VOTE OF THE PEOPLE. 

The proposition to elect the United States Senators by direct vote 
of the people instead of by the vote of their representatives, as pro- 
vided by the Constitution, is a long step in the direction of populism. 
It has a plausible ring, but when analyzed is found to be based on the 
illogical assumption that the people are less likely to be fooled in the 
selection of Senators by direct vote than they are in the choice of 
representatives in the legislature who vote for Senators. 

In other words, it is assumed that tlie voter has better knowledge 
of the character and fitness of the candidate for Senator than of the 
local representative in the legislature Avho votes for Senator. 

Just the contrary is likely to be the case. 



28 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 

It is charged tliat under the present system seats in the Senate are 
sometimes procured by corrupt means. 

The same charge has been made from time to time concerning 
elections under any and every system whatsoever. 

Every reasonable safeguard should be thrown around the election 
of all public officials, and wherever frauds are known to exist their 
perpetrators should be sought out and severely punished. 

Under the proposed system, however, the possibility of fraudulent 
practices is not eliminated, if we may judge by the experience of 
Wisconsin and other Commonwealths where the direct primary is in 
operation. 

The trouble rests with the fountainhead (the people) which can 
not send forth sweet water under one system and bitter water under 
the other. 

On the other hand, the proposed amendment to the Constitution 
upsets the otherwise stable equilibrium, of our governmental system 
of checks and balances. 

As it is now one stands for radicalism, the other for conservatism — 
one is for steam, the other is for break. 

Under the change suggested the purpose of the founders of the 
Republic is perverted, and the ears of Senators and Representatives 
alike are forced groundward to catch the murmurs of the multitude. 

What becomes of independent judgment if the Senate becomes 
subservient to public clamor ? 

Moreover, what intelligent reason can be given for the continuance 
of two popular assemblies '. 

History has written across the abutments of the bridge over which 
the advocates of these so-called reforms would drive with such reck- 
less rein — " Danger !" 

de:magogues. 

In the fourth chapter of the sixth book of his Politics, Aristotle" 
paints a true-to-life portrait of a modern type in an up-to-date 
setting : 

There is yet anorher sijecies of denioeraey wbicb is similar to the last in all 
respects except that the people rather than the law is here supreme. This Is 
the case when it is popular decrees which are the final authority and not the 
law. * * * It is the demagogues who are responsible for the popular decrees 
rather than the laws, as they submit everything to the commons. And they 
do so because the consequence is an increase of their own power if the commons 
control all affairs and they themselves control the judgment of the commons, 
as it is their guidance that the commons always follow. Another circumstance 
which leads to the last form of democracy is that all who have any complaint 
against the officers of the State argue that the judicial power ought to be 
vested in the commons, and as the commons gladly entertain the indictment the 
result is that the authority of all the officers of the State is seriously impaired. 
It would seem a just criticism to assert that this kind of a democracy is not 
a constitutional government at all, as constitutional government is impossible 
without the supremacy of laws. For it is right that the law should be supreme 
universally, and the officers of state only in particular cases, if the government 
is to be I'egarded as constitutional. 

The demagogue is more dangerous than the dynamiter. His 
methods are more reprehensible. 

We can handle the latter: not so the former. 

Back of the dynamiter stands the demagogue, inciting his dupes to 
deeds of violence which he liimself lacks the courage to execute. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UlSriTED STATES ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 29 

Like the serpent in the garden which beguiled our first parents, he 
lures them into his net, stuffs them with sophistry, feeds their vanity, 
cajoles them with hopes Avhich can neveivbe realized, and when the 
inevitable crash comes crawls away fn the weeds and leaves his hap- 
less victims to meet the situation as best they may. 

If the United States of America ever shares the fate of the empires 
of the past it will be due in large part to the malign influence of 
these detestable vipers. 

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE. 

Under the Constitution, with but few amendments, our popula- 
tion has increased from less than 4,000,000 in 1787 to nearly 95,000,000 
souls in 1912. 

The country has expanded from 13 anemic colonies clinging to 
the Atlantic seaboard to 48 sturdy Commonwealths stretching from 
sea to sea and from the St. Lawrence to the Rio Grande, with Alaska, 
the Hawaiian and Philippine Islands, Guam, and Porto Rico thrown 
in for good measure. 

From penuiy and provincialism to prosperity and power unex- 
ampled among the nations of the earth. 

More than this, wealth is more evenly distributed and labor is 
better paid than in the early days of the Republic, yea than in any 
country on the globe. 

Under our public-school system the children of the poor have the 
same opportunities of obtaining a liberal education as the children of 
the rich. I 

Here, thank God| there are no insurmountable obstacles in the 
pathway of aspiring genius. 

The words of Garfield come to mind : 

While the light of our schools shines nudiuimed and unclouded upon all of our 
children, we may safely count upon centuries of liberty and safety. * * * 
In all aristocracies society is organized on the principle of i^ermaneut classes 
fixed and rigid as the layers of rock that form the earth's crust. At the bot- 
tom, under the superincumbent weight of all their institutions and population, 
are the laboring poor. * * * Our society does not re.semble the crust of 
the earth with its impassible barriers of roclc, but resembles rather the waters 
of the mighty sea. deep, broad, boundless, but yet so free in all its parts that 
the drop which mingles with the sand at its bottom is free to rise through all 
the mass of waters till it flashes in the light on the crest of the highest wave. 
* * * There is no boy in America, however humble his birth or in whatever 
depth of poverty his lot may be cast, who. if he has a strong arm, a clear 
head, and a brave heart, may not rise by the light of our schools and the free- 
dom of our laws until he shall stand foremost in the honor and confidence of 
his country. 

Garfield was a living example of his own utterances, rising as he 
did from the towpath to the White House. 

The truth is the aggressions of concentrated capital are yielding to 
the restraints of legislation. 

Government, whether national, State, or municipal, is much cleaner 
to-day than e^er before. 

We can and will clean the Augean stables without resort to the 
torch of the incendiaiy. 

We have not retrograded; we have not been standing pat, right 
or wrong; we have steadily advanced and will continue to advance if 



30 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES — ITS FRIENDS AND FOES. 

we are not induced to wander after strange gods and worship at the 
slirine of the twin ftiries — unbridled democracy and lustful anarchy. 

Those who tell us that our institutions are archaic, that our democ- 
racy is a sham, that representative government must be discarded for 
direct government by the people, are either blind themselves or bent 
upon blinding others. 

It has been said that — 

A niouarchy is a luan-of-war ironclail and resistless wlien under a full head 
of steam, but a single hidden rock will send her to the bottom ; our Republic is 
a raft hard to steer and your feet always wet, but nothing can sink her. 

Nothing can sink her as long as her beams of live oak are not dis- 
placed bj^ soft poplar. 

An American visiting for the first time one of the great art gal- 
leries of Florence, gave a hurried glance at its world-famed canvasses, 
and as he was bustling out said to the venerable custodian: "I do not 
see anything so very wonderful about your pictures." Whereupon 
the custodian replied. •'" Our pictures are not on trial, sir, but our visi- 
tors are." 

So it is with the American Constitution ; that great instrument is 
not on triah but the American people are. 

Shall it be said of the United States of America as it has been said 
of so many proud governments of the past : 

Where now is America? 

Even as the savage sits upon the stone 

That marks where stood the capitol. and hears 

The bittern booming in the weeds, he shrlidjs 

From the dismaying solitude. 

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